The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang

Others had crossed the frontier before him, notably Fa-hian and Sung Yun, others in due course would come and go, leaving to posterity their impressions of a changing world, but Hiuen-Tsiang stands alone, a prince of pilgrims, a very Bayard of Buddhist enthusiasm, fearless and without reproach. As we read through the pages of Hwjui-li the fascination of the master of the law becomes clear to us, not suddenly, but with the long, arduous miles that mark the way to India and the journey home. Hiuen-Tsiang was born into a world that beheld the tree of Buddhism slowly dying from the top. He bore witness to a time of transition and a noble faith in decay, and the swift and silent growth of jungle mythology around the crumbling temples of Buddha. His record of these sixteen years of travel is a priceless one, for through it we are able to reconstruct the world and ways of Buddhist India of the centuries that have passed.